REPARATIONS AND DEBTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21542, 14 January 1932, Page 7

REPARATIONS AND DEBTS

BANK DIRECTOR’S SPEECH APPROVAL IN ITALY. LONDON, January 12. An article in Popolo d’ltalia, which is widely quoted and is attributed in some quarters to Signor Mussolini himself, refers approvingly to Mr Shaw’s Liverpool speech on reparations and war debts. The writer states that he hopes that the Lausanne Conference will end by wiping the slate clean of the war’s tragic balance sheet. The deputy-chairman of the P. and O. Company, the Hon. Alexander Shaw, at an official luncheon on the company’s new vessel, the Strathaird, spoke impressively on reparations and war debts, remarking that he had to be cautious as a director of the Bank of England. “An atmosphere of menace hangs over Europe,” he said. “Distrust gives rise to armaments and these to more distrust. The stagnation of industry is attributed to the failure of capitalism by those who would wreck the system of free enterprise and replace it by a slave state.” It was no exaggeration to say that the economic and social structure of Europe was daily moving nearer the precipice. Europe was in the position where willingness to pay, however, admirable, was no longer relevant. “ The blunt truth is,” said Mr Shaw, “that if things go on as they are • going the choice will simply be between repudiation and chaos. May I suggest a healing message spoken long ago: ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ These words teach us the wise, indeed the only practical economic policy.”